Dumb name, I know! That’s why it’s a temporary one for the book I have started to write. I don’t know if I should call it a book or not. Yup, I’m still drowning in self doubt as always. But this is an internal fight. I keep doubting myself and yet I keep doing whatever stuff I doubt myself in.

Seems I’m not the only one who keeps doubting themselves. It seems to be a disease in my family. I’m not sure about my elder brother but my little brother and little sister keep doubting themselves. I know they can do the stuff they think they can’t do but they don’t know it.

My case is a little similar but a little different too. Deep down, I damn well know that there is nothing that I can’t do, that I put my mind to but doubting myself throughout the journey and self torment is kind of my thing. I hate it but I do it anyway.

I’ve been trying to think for an appropriate title for my novel but as of yet, I’ve failed miserably, hence this crappy name. I’ve updated the second chapter but it’s a short one since all my attempts at researching an area for the setting of my story have further confused me. I want my setting to be some part of England but I’ve never been outside of my own country so it’s hard to familiarize myself with the stuff of a foreign country through virtual aids only.

Another hindrance is that the story-line has been teasing, tormenting and keeping me awake at nights but I have not been able to think things through. I was just in a hurry to get things out of me as keeping them inside is a burden sometimes. The result- I’ve not thought about the details inside the plot. Which means that I will have to make up the details as I move along but move things in the direction that my plot wants me to take.

I’m not gonna back down though. I’ve started too many projects in the past and left them mid-way, but not this one. I’m going to force myself to complete this one. No matter how crappy the story goes. No matter how much of a failure it proves to be( or not).

Because, the monsters inside my head won’t rest until I have shot every single one of them.

“Sometimes, a teacher learns from a student; a healer is healed by the wounded; darkness nurses the light in its very heart. And sometimes, imperfection saves your life…….”
She was a piece of work, that one. She talked in cryptic words with a playful smile on her lips and her eyes full of mischief. She knew how to dodge a bullet with mere words. You would end up being so frustrated after talking to her because her every answer was a riddle in itself and I was nowhere near solving any of the old ones, let alone the new ones piling up.
I was a curious soul and she knew it. She knew she had a great deal of power over me. I was supposed to be treating her but instead, she knew me more than I could say about knowing her. But I never gave up. She had to have some buttons that I could press, to make her talk. I just had to figure out a way to stumble upon one, even if by mistake. A fraction of a moment when she didn’t have her wits about her….. I was looking for a loop hole, a slip up. But it seemed as if she was invincible….
Running was one of my most favourite activities. I would go jogging, at dawn, every day. I loved the rush of adrenaline in my veins. Everything moving in a blur past me when I ran….. That was my happy place; a place where I went every single time after meeting her, to clear my head, to calm my nerves and to get rid of surplus energy, coursing through my body.
“You can run but you can’t escape.” I heard her voice behind me one morning as I passed an old Oak tree, standing proud and erect at the rear end of the park. I often ran through the thick woods where most people didn’t even dare to go. Her, being there, was weird. The place was always deserted, partly the reason that I ran there every day.
Hearing her voice, I came to an abrupt halt. I turned around to see her beautiful face but instead my gaze landed upon a pair of haunted, empty eyes and pursed lips. It felt as if I had accidentally hit another dimension, an alternate reality. In my 26 years in that town, I had never seen her face wiped off of that refreshing smile. She seemed as if she was about to collapse. I stepped closer to catch her, anticipating her possible fall.
“What are you doing here, in the middle of nowhere?” I asked.
“Walk with me…..?!” She half asked half ordered me, completely ignoring my question, like she always did.
I fell into steps beside her. She looked fragile.
“What are you so afraid of? Isn’t that the question you once asked me?” She recollected one of our previous, futile talks. Without waiting for an answer, she continued, “Let me answer that for you today. I…. I think I’m afraid of everything. But most of all, I’m afraid of my unfed mind, devouring my soul. I’m afraid of being a prisoner forever. I’m afraid of myself.”
I was speechless for a moment. I mean, I had spent countless hours trying to get into her head, trying to get her to talk to me only to get the answers that never made any sense. What changed now? Why did she, all of a sudden, decide that she wanted to talk?
“You know, you are still not making any sense.” I replied, a little on the edge. When it came to her, I always tended to run low on patience. I wanted immediate gratification, direct answers. I could and would surely even tolerate bluntness, if it meant solving the puzzle that she was.
A faint, ghost of a smile played on her lips. “You know, for a shrink, you are quite an impatient one.” I ran my hand through my hair and closed my eyes, a habit I picked up over time. Her smile grew, seeing my obvious impatience.
“You are not going to make it any easier, are you?” I asked, exasperated.
“I don’t plan to.” She replied, still in a cheeky mood. I sighed.
We walked in a complete silence, save the rustling of the leaves around. Her home was adjacent to the park. I could almost sense that our talk was over by the time we neared her doorsteps. But as she slowly climbed her stairs, she turned towards me and said, “It’s almost time!”
“Time for what?” I asked. She stayed quiet. “Time for what?” I asked again.
“Soon.” She said.
“Soon….? Soon, what?” I almost silently begged her not to leave me hanging there, as she opened her front door. “Patience my dear, patience!”
She smiled again as she turned, that smile not reaching her eyes. She entered her home and closed the door behind her.
This time, I wasn’t only frustrated, I was angry and scared. A smile on a face as white as death was enough to rattle someone. But I was more afraid of what her words might mean. They had an aura of danger about them. My insides kept shouting, trying, to be heard, over her every word that was playing on an infinite loop inside my head. She seemed sick but still she held strong. Anyone would have called her stupid but I had a feeling that she knew what she was doing and I was just too dumb to figure it out quick enough.
She first came to me after her folks died in a car accident a year ago. She wasn’t the first disturbed person that I had encountered but she was definitely the first one who didn’t look the part. She came voluntarily to the sessions, always on time and never missed even a single one. She would sit for an hour, saying very little or sometimes, nothing at all. I always did most of the talking, asking her questions which were mostly answered by her silence and sometimes with words that were plain English but somehow, I always failed to understand.
Whenever I would ask her why she was here when she didn’t feel like talking very much, she would reply with a serious face that she liked it here. What was it that she liked, still beats me. And then she would go on and say “Some people are just not meant to be caged….. You know, one of these days you’ll get really tired but nobody will care. You try too hard, you know…….”
Or she would sometimes bombard me with questions. With her, I never knew what was coming next……
I woke up with a start, the very next morning, my eyes, still a little groggy from staying up late last night, trying to figure out what she meant yesterday. I barely heard the faint knock on my front door over my thudding heart. One look at the clock and my whole body went limp for a bit. I should have been up and jogging, about half an hour ago. I cursed under my breath as I peeled away the sheets from my body, for a moment, forgetting the pounding on my door that woke me up in the first place.
Rubbing my eyes, I hurriedly walked towards my door. It was already March but the mornings were still pretty chilly around here. Whoever was out there, had a good chance of freezing to death. I opened the door and my arms barely caught her before her knees hit the floor. I was fully awake, that very instant.
“What the hell do you think you are doing? Are you trying to kill yourself?” I hissed, darkly, anger seeping into my blood, and me, barely controlling it from oozing out.
“I waited for you. You didn’t come to the park today. I had to see you!” She replied, her voice a mere whisper, her eyes pleading, silently, to be heard. Seeing her face, my rage went out the window.
Her rosy cheeks had been completely replaced by a lime, papery thin skin. It was as if she had aged decades in a single week.
She was in no condition to walk so I carried her to the couch in my living room. Her breaths were shallow, her hands, freezing cold. I put a quilt over her tiny body and said “I’ll be back in a jiffy.” But as I was about to go into my kitchenette to whip up some hot cocoa with cream, she grabbed a hold of my sleeve and stopped me, saying “There’s no time.”
I stopped in my tracks, that nagging feeling from yesterday, returning with full force. “You need to be warm.” I said, reluctant, by this time, to leave her side.
“No, I need to give you this.” She took out a diary from an inside pocket of her jacket. “For once, you should be glad. I listened to what you said. I kept a journal.” She continued. “You’ll get your answers now. At least some of them….”
A tear escaped her eye and was followed by several more. Internally, I slapped myself out of my shell-shocked state, sat by her side and put my arms around her.
“You know, it’s so hard to put up a brave face when there is nothing left inside of you, when you are just an empty shell.” She broke down, in my arms.
“People see that composed face and they think that nothing can shake you, you are invincible. That gives them the illusion of being entitled to hurt you. Because you are brave, nothing can break you down or tear you up. But they are wrong. Oh God! They are so, so wrong!!!” She sobbed.
For once in my life, she and I were on the same page. I heard her, I understood her and I felt for her. All this time, she had been trying to give a face to the courage itself. It’s hardly possible for me not to admire her strength. Life does have a twisted, ironic sense of humor.
“But it’s time…… It’s time for me to bury the demons I have fought my entire life. I have battled for so long, I’m tired. I don’t want to fight anymore.”
I held her tighter in my arms. It felt as if she was saying good bye. But the truth is, I didn’t want to let her go. Yes, she drove me insane but over the time, I had come to love that feeling.
From a distance, I had known her ever since she was born. I knew she was strong, like her parents but I never knew how much pain she hid under that mesmerizing smile. I never guessed how much damage her parents’ death did to her. She was like a beacon of light, at the heart of darkness. A small voice that refused to be denied an audience.
She closed her eyes as I wiped tears from her cheek. Her face turned into my palm, as if, savoring the warmth. She sighed, her lips curving into a faint smile before her body went limp. For a moment I thought she was asleep, she seemed so peaceful. But her body slowly turned colder. What happened next, is a chunk of darkness; a blur. A significant part of my morning, completely gone….. Forgotten, unregistered by a grieving mind.
It seems I was on auto pilot mode that day, after she died in my arms. Her funeral passed in a haze. Apparently, she had isolated herself from the world after her family died and she was closest to me in the whole town so I was supposed to recite her eulogy. I don’t know what I said. I think I must have stood there in complete silence. Then I must have broken down in front of the entire town because she taught me that it was okay to cry through the pain sometimes and get over it. There’s no shame in it; that it was okay to not be a hero all the time; that if bursting into tears healed the hole in your heart and saved you from an eternity of misery, then being imperfect wasn’t so bad after all. For this imperfection, this tiny moment of weakness, this window of respite was what made us stronger in the end.
The moment I got back home, I sat by the couch, on the carpet and opened her journal.
The first page read:
‘Some day, the visits to the doc won’t be enough. My mind is already overwhelming me, on daily basis. It’s hard, really hard, not to cry every waking moment. When I go for the sessions, I don’t know why, but I feel calmer, even though the doc keeps complaining that I don’t talk much. I think she is the reason that I’m still grounded. She talks funny and always keeps asking me questions. I answer her every question but I guess, I do it in my head…..’
Another entry said:
‘I can feel it coming. It’s almost time to be free. The freedom I have longed for, so much, my whole life. How can someone force someone to be a prisoner? It’s barbaric. It’s inhumane…..’
The next page consisted of a single sentence only.
‘Some entities are just wild and not meant to be caged.’
I could sense a theme, a pattern in most of the journal entries. Another one read:
‘The hole inside me has grown wider. It’s consuming me. I don’t know how much longer I can hold onto this dear life. I think my crazy mind would be the death of me.’
‘Okay, the train just crossed the ‘weird-ville’ to ‘deadly town’, I thought to myself.
I kept reading. Honestly, I couldn’t stop at this point.
‘Every bird is meant to fly. My time will come soon….’
Again with the metaphors. She was mysterious, even in death.
The next entry was composed of two short sentences.
‘I’m sick. I’m ready….’
I was saved from a severe headache that was slowly building, by the next entry.
‘Dear doc, I’ve never been great with good-byes. I never got the chance to say that to my family. So I’m making sure the history doesn’t repeat itself this time. I’ve been sick for quite some time now. But my sickness is the key to my dungeon. This body….. It has been holding me back. I have always felt as if I was being held captive, against my will. But that’s gonna change, soon! I know I owe you some answers, hence this entry. You have been a real help, even when you thought you weren’t and even when you didn’t know it.
I have always known that I was wild. I was meant to be out in the open. Nothing helped to drown this voice inside me. You are lucky doc. You run and escape from everything for a moment. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t reach my happy place. Finally, it’s time for me to move on to my happy place. This might be the last time I write in here.
My death will be my salvation and I will embrace it with open arms. And dear doc, when the time comes, you need to let the bird fly. With a wide smile, say your good bye!
And then the next page, adorned with her last few words. The words I would never forget….
“Sometimes, a teacher learns from a student; a healer is healed by the wounded; darkness nurses the light in its very heart. And sometimes, imperfection saves your life………..”

It’s one of those days when I can’t think of a decent title for the post I want to write. Well, that’s most of my days anyway. Choosing title isn’t my kinda thing really but things get annoying when I keep getting a cluster of random thoughts. Life is tiresome already, without a thousand random, unrelated thoughts bombarding my mind all the time. I’ve been meaning to write time and again, but didn’t get enough time to do so. And at other times, I was just too tired and sleep deprived to write or even think about writing. And then there are these frequently non-creative days when my writer’s block hits and keeps me asleep, creatively.
I’m writing tonight because I so much want to and because I had some little time to rest today. It’s taking some effort to make sense even to myself but I’m trying to pen down whatever comes into my mind. I won’t recheck it or reread it to pick out mistakes. Tonight is my night to be completely random and senseless and free.
I’ve been having these heart racing issues ever since I’ve stopped thinking about my fairy-tale. It’s not that I don’t want it, I do, even after being denied of it time and again, with all my heart-that might be one reason that my heart is giving out. Perhaps it’s tired of all the nonsense that I always put it through. Anyway, it would probably have looked cute if it was just a story and not a real life issue. An issue, which is so elusive that even the doctors are finding it hard to find the root cause and cure. I’m not dodging my doctors. Of course unrequited love is like jumping into dangerous waters, and I did, even though I knew, I couldn’t swim. But I’m not depressed, not anxious, not stressed not even down. If I knew one thing before falling in love, it was that I can control my thoughts. And so I did. No more wishful thinking, no more obsessions about creative twists that my life could have taken. In fact, no more missing my love interest. Not even a small thought, stealthily slipping into my mind- nil, nada! And studies aren’t tough. Or, maybe I should say, I’m not finding them tough ’cause, honestly, I don’t bother studying at all, still I’m scoring good. Of course, if I actually do study, I can easily ace my classes. Even without putting any efforts, I’m doing better than my 90% of class. CMH is going great too, alhamdulillah! It’s like suddenly I’m working, with all my heart even though I’m not. The routine is tiresome- hard hours, not as hard as doctors but still, harder than they ever were before. But I know one thing for sure, it can’t get any harder and it will take a LOT more than this hard routine and continuous sickness to put me down. And thanks to this routine, I can focus my mind more than I could ever before, on the task at hand. No time to think about the things that were so important to me two weeks ago.
I never went through any emotional breakdown either. I have never EVER found myself so calm before, in a situation where any other girl would probably be an invalid by now. Some day, I want people to look at me and say with wonder in their eyes and a smile playing on their lips, “You don’t give up, do you?!” And I want that to be the reality of my existence.
My cell is stoned and I don’t know how I’m not freaking out about it for past 4 days. I never thought I would be able to live without whatsapp or telegram or other kinds of social media. Turns out, I miss my pdf files on my cell more than the social media. Sometimes, even I amaze myself.
I have no idea why named my post “stuck, blocked, scarred but moving”. Beats me…..
Time to sleep….

Like this:

The scars you left her with,
she still wears them with pride.
She’s braver than you think,
didn’t find the need to hide.
Loving you was a privilege,
she’d gladly do it again.
What joy love brings,
you never know without some pain.

Life has a certain taint of irony to it. It is so fairly unfair. It builds you up to break you down. It makes you euphoric only to send you spiraling down to depression. It’s easy to be alive and yet hard to live. Doors close to your face, and open behind you. It squeezes the life out of you, when you are not looking and fills you with the energy when you need it the least. Life is peculiar. And maybe that’s the only reason that it is so interesting to live.
Everyone knows her to be strong. Her friends call her supergirl. She calls herself, stubborn. When she’s stuck at a place, nothing moves her. People come, people argue, people bang their heads, they see a stone and people go. She doesn’t budge when things she’s passionate about are at stake. She’s that difficult but extremely easy as well.
She stands like a dude, in social gatherings she’s almost mute. She hates people and yet loves to save them. She’s a sucker for misery and pain. Can’t stand either of those. Emotions rule her and so does a level head. She doesn’t love, she melts. In anger she’s a grenade with its pin out. She’s the kind of person who would die for the ones she loves. And here’s where the life brings a twist.
A girl, who runs to save the world- the world of her beloveds, when she needs saving, people put their foot on her cape. Sometimes, bigger hurts are easier to endure, with patience. and at other times, little things may make her to cry her eyes out.
She’s patient, she will give you space. She gives so many chances before you can actually break her. She won’t ask you to fight beside her- NEVER! But, is it asking too much if she sometimes wishes you to stand close and do nothing? Just watch her while she saves the world?
Where does the supergirl or a superwoman go, when she’s hurt? Who tends to her wounds? Who tells her, that everything would be okay, that life is difficult but she”s not a quitter?
You know what the problem here is?!
If a girl is strong, people start expecting her to be invincible. They think that a strong woman won’t break. But even the supergirl gets hurt with Kryptonite, that does serious damage. She’s strong but she’s not immune to emotions. Sometimes, even the supergirl needs saving…….

Dear diary,
I’m going home, today. For how long, I don’t know. What am I gonna do there, that’s a big mystery too. It’s been 5 years now, I’ve been out of my place, away from my folks….. And I’m going home now and I don’t know them much anymore- they don’t know me much either. Its not like I don’t visit. But weekends aren’t really enough when most of that time, you spend in your journey. Anyway, I’m hoping that they won’t try to clip my wings. They are small but they are mine, nevertheless. And they know how much I love my freedom and it’s one thing I never compromise on. The day when this truly sank in my mind, that my degree has been completed and I can’t stay here anymore, I felt weird. I wanted to stay. I know my mind set didn’t change too much but it certainly wasn’t conservative in the first place….unlike people back at my home station. Anyway, I know I might have to do a LOT of fighting and standing up back there. It’s fine with me as long as I don’t hurt anybody’s feelings. I know I would tread with care but I know I am no more the kind of person I used to be and I slip up, more than once,in a while. I am quick to anger-AGAIN but I’m quick at letting go as well. I’ve been suffering from “Negativitis” for past two nights but I’m still hoping for the best while preparing my mind for the worst as well. Goodness!I’m getting late!
I gotta go. Dunno when I would be able to write next or if I would be able to, at all!
No, It’s not a goodbye. I will manage to come back somehow, in sha Allah!
Writing here has been a constant help in my effort to release stress and anxiety- and I already feel better. Okay, I really gotta run now!

Dear diary,
do you believe in miracles? Have you ever seen one?
I have, very closely! My miracles have always been the prayers of those who love me. They practically saved me from the recesses of my own mind, a stage where I was nothing more than a statue. A silent, pitiful portrait of misery, all signs of life’s joys sucked out of me. Today, I’m a alive, so full of energy that its hard to displace it. I want to give a helping hand to those in need. I want to shower so much love that the worlds of those around me lit up. I want to express myself so openly that it hurts when I don’t.
Yes, indeed! My life has been nothing but a miracle from the very start! Every step that I have walked, every wrong turn that I took, has somehow sent me to the right places at the right times. Could I be any more thankless? And not just thankless but a thankless selfish brat! I have so much and yet I crave for one more blind turn, one more unusual experience, one more wrong footing and a person to catch me when I’m about to fall. But oh dear Me! I seem to forget every time I enter my fantasy world, that the guy I’m dreaming of, isn’t coming. My savior in this world is none other than Me! I’m the damsel in distress and I am the prince charming I so await. I’m the only person who can save me from me! My self destruct mode is off.
I’m in love, have fallen really hard and in recent few weeks I have broken badly, been in a depressive state so much but I’ve been praying excessively as well. My friends tell me to leave him. He can’t be mine. He’s too hard to get….. And stuff like that. Yes, I keep dealing with this type of comments on daily basis and yes, I have been under so much stress that it seemed like someone was squeezing my windpipe but I came out of all that. I have come out of all that melancholic stage. I’m stronger. I feel invincible even though this isn’t the right word to use, technically. Anyway, throughout my past stress and frustrations Facebook has been my writing-board because logging in here took some extra internet signals that I was short of, at home. So I would paste those poems in here today, in a bit in sha Allah!
So much has changed since the last time I wrote in here. I missed writing so much that it used to hurt inside. I lost myself and I found myself again. I faced the world alone and broken. But I didn’t give up. Thanks to my friends and family. You peeps are a big blessing in my life! I used to keep thinking about the things I would write in here and now, while I’m actually writing in here, I can’t really think properly. My mind is too scattered!
One funny and frustrating thing is happening these days. My aunt and I keep playing games. She’s trying to train me for my inevitable future as a married lady and I’m doing everything in my power(well, a little less than everything- she’s already got a real tough life without me roughing it up a bit more 😉 ) to be non-cooperative and cheeky, because I don’t want to be a housewife >.< She sends me North and I end up in South-East 😀 Anyway, the tug of war sometimes annoys me a lot. Like it did right now. I don’t wanna get up and work when I’m in the middle of something that holds importance for me. Oh and my ears hurt now, from trying to block my aunt and her family out of my ears, with a hands-free on with full volume and a video lecture that I’m trying to concentrate on and understand. Sometimes I just hate it here and at other times, I kinda miss this place. But seriously, I need my peace- a vacuum, a no-sound place in my life. I hate people disturbing my thought chain.
Anyway, my mood has been spoiled, thanks to the people who love me so much!
Like I said, I have grown to be a very stubborn, obstinate, thankless brat and right now I kinda prove it without trying
Anyway, getting towards posting the poems I recently wrote and probably another post that keeps disturbing my mind. If I get as far as that without any other disturbance.
P.S: Insurgent DVD version better be great because it has made me wait for so long